Campus Chronicles with Ben Parker & Braeden Rigney

This week has been a bit of a whirlwind. Winning an Atlantic Hockey Championship and earning a bid to the NCAA tournament a week ago hasn’t really given us much time to really soak it in. We’ve been back to work all week long and tomorrow we’ll be back on the road to Providence, R.I. It’s been an exciting week to say the least and the support we have been receiving from people around and off of campus has been huge. Speaking for myself, a kid from small-town Ontario, I really didn’t realize how much this would mean for everybody, especially around our team.

With this being playoff season, many of the Griffs are wearing their best playoff beards around campus. For the guys without beards, they do their best to keep their faces dirty so they don’t look too out of place. It’s usually playoff tradition for the entire team to cut in mohawk haircuts, however, this year we decided against it. Seems to have turned out alright. Some of the more notable beards around the team this far are guys like Carl Larsson, Keegan Asmundson, Mitch McCrank and Tony Capobianco. Capo’s been growing thick beards since he was just a boy so his hair growth doesn’t really come as a surprise to anybody.

Today was our last day of school for over a week as Easter Break and Spring Break were combined this year in order to give students a longer break. I know that a good number of guys had flights booked in order to be home for Easter if we were no longer playing. I’m pretty sure everybody is alright with the whole “missing Easter dinner in order to play at the national tournament” arrangement however.

Having the break start as we leave for Providence is perfect as we really don’t have to worry about any kind of school work that would be due on a Monday of a regular week.

I’d like to thank all of the people that have reached out to us and supported Griffs Hockey over the last few weeks. It’s pretty awesome knowing that there are that many people out there that care about our program. The way our season has turned out means the world to all of us, including the alumni of Griffs Hockey.

I know that Providence may be quite a hike from the Buffalo area but if any of you readers are looking to make the trek to Rhode Island for Saturday, we’d love to see you in the stands.